A group of Sitkans are banding together to help get life-saving services to people in Gaza, who are living in dire conditions in large displacement camps.
The local group is working with Tamie Parker Song, an Alaskan with deep ties to Gaza who in 2023 helped found a network supporting Gazans, called “Impossible Light.”
Impossible Light coordinates with Parker Song’s loved ones in Al-Mawasi, Gaza, who can take monetary donations to procure food and supplies that are available in Gaza, and distribute those supplies in an area of Al-Mawasi that’s home to some 150 families.
The network has been coordinating direct aid in Al-Mawasi since the spring of 2024; it’s since provided families with infant formula, diapers, children’s clothes, shoes, glasses, blankets, tents, milk, pita bread, vegetables, fruits, chicken, beef and clean drinking water, among other essentials.
Information about Impossible Light is available at www.impossiblelight.org. A fundraising platform shows donor information, and updates on how the donations are reaching families.
Sitkans are now organizing an Al-Mawasi sister-city-like initiative to support Impossible Light; more information is at the end of the article.
Parker Song, who lived in Sitka after being a fellow with the Island Institute, visited this summer and stopped by the Sentinel to discuss Impossible Light.
She spoke of her connection to Gaza. As a child she lived between Kodiak, the U.S. Midwest, and Jerusalem, where her father, a biblical scholar, completed his doctorate as a Christian scholar.
“So we would go back and forth between commercial fishing on the backside of Kodiak, and Jerusalem, every year, back and forth,” Parker Song said. “I went to an international school in Jerusalem. … It’s just a deep connection to the place.”
Humanitarian Crisis
Parker Song discussed the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, a very small territory comprising a string of major cities that are geographically separate from, and inaccessible by, the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Gaza is bordered by Egypt, Israel, and the Mediterranean Sea, and is home to more than 2 million people, most of whom are Palestinian refugees.
Parker Song said Israel has long been an occupying force over Gaza; it built a barrier around the Gaza Strip in the 1990s.
In 2007, the militant movement group Hamas took power following the Gaza Civil War.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led militants carried out air and ground attacks on Israel. Hours later, Israel launched a campaign of bombardment on Gaza.
Israeli strikes have since killed tens of thousands of people in Gaza, including more than 20,000 children, Gaza Health Ministry data states.
The strikes have destroyed most of the country, including farmlands and urban and rural areas.
Parker Song noted that some two million Gazans are now living in vast tent cities on roughly 75 square miles of land – about 1/38th the area of Baranof Island.
“These are not REI tents, they’re pieces of cloth that people have tied together,” Parker Song said. “There’s rats and mice and insects biting people all the time; there’s open sewage everywhere, and no clean water."
“Where they’re living is a teeny tiny piece of land and they can’t go anywhere else,” Parker Song said, noting that Gazans are barred from leaving. "It's catastrophically horrific."
Fundraising to evacuate people from Gaza
Parker Song recalled that, when she heard news of the Oct. 7 attacks, she anticipated an extreme response from Israel, and sprang into action.
Beginning on Oct. 8, 2023, Parker Song reached out to old friends with connections in Gaza. An initial group of three began raising funds to evacuate people from Gaza, which at the time cost $2,500 per child and up to $8,500 per adult.
“We started asking our friends and family for money,” Parker Song said.
She explained that the tiny team supported 48 people in getting out of Gaza.
One Palestinian refugee, Allaaeldin, coordinated the evacuations while living in Belgium.
After communicating by phone for months, Allaaeldin and Parker Song met in person in Belgium.
“We hit it off, and we fell in love,” Parker Song recalled, beaming. “He’s just so wonderful.” The couple married in September 2024.
Shifting to direct mutual aid
In spring 2024, Parker Song, Allaaeldin and other organizers were working hard to get Allaaeldin’s best friend, Mohammed, out of Gaza with his family.
But in May 2024, days before the family was set to leave Gaza, Israel Defense Forces closed the Gaza-Egypt border.
So with Mohammed and his family trapped in Gaza, the friends began working to keep people alive in their neighborhood of Al-Mawasi, which is home to up to 150 families, Allaaeldin said in a recent phone call.
In the two and a half years since the border closure, Mohammed and his wife Walaa have worked to source and purchase items like baby formula and diapers for hundreds of people in their neighborhood.
The work has been grueling at times, as Walaa has had pancreatic tumors while stuck in Gaza.
Parker Song described the two as “just heroic, off the charts.”
Through Mohammed and Walaa's efforts, Impossible Light has responded to many urgent needs in Al-Mawasi.
In addition to food, clothing, diapers, baby formula and clean water, Impossible Light has funded tent outhouses for Gazans, who have no bathrooms or sanitation.
The group also raised funds for people to dig a trench and lay PVC pipe for fresh water in an area of Al-Mawasi -- but then Israeli forces bulldozed the neighborhood, including the water system.
“Everybody escaped with – not even their shoes – in the middle of the night one night,” Parker Song said. “So then we had to start completely over, get everything again."
“All through this, there’s drones flying overhead, there’s bombings nearby,” Parker Song said. “Every single person in Gaza is in continual extreme danger.”
A recent posting by Parker Song to the Impossible Light website states that in July an Israeli soldier shot through the fabric walls of tents in Al-Mawasi, maiming a mother and her 11-year-old daughter who were resting inside one tent.
The two survived. Impossible Light responded to the news of the shooting by offering ways to directly support families in Gaza.
Fundraising for direct aid continues
People from all over the world have donated to Impossible Light. Parker Song said that two of the leading donors to Impossible Light are Jewish; donors represent many faith groups and nationalities.
Parker Song said that while many people seemed tuned into the situation in Gaza in 2024, financial support has since slowed.
Meanwhile, Israeli authorities have barred many groups from delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Impossible Light is well-positioned to get critical aid to families there because "we’re in touch with people in Gaza, that’s how we are making this happen," Parker Song said. “We’re a network of individual people."
"We're helping a drop of the people who are in crisis in Gaza," Allaaeldin told the Sentinel. “It's a huge, huge number of people who are in crisis. Fortunately, people are helping."
He said there are many risks associated with the work that Mohammed and Walaa are doing in Gaza, but they have not yet faced specific retaliation for purchasing and distributing food, clean water and other supplies.
Parker Song noted that Mohammed and Walaa place Impossible Light stickers on the items they distribute, such as pita, vegetables and meat.
In Arabic and English, the stickers remind Gazans that “You are the impossible light.”
“This is Gazans helping Gazans,” Parker Song said.
Parker Song encouraged donations to Impossible Light via www.impossiblelight.org or the fundraising page https://chuffed.org/project/114535-milk-formula-to-infants-in-gaza
After meeting with Parker Song this summer, a group of Sitkans began organizing a Sitka -- Al-Mawasi sister-city-like initiative, called “Neighbors of the Heart," to provide support and encouragement for the residents of Al-Mawasi.
Those interested in learning more about or participating in the "Neighbors of the Heart" project can contact Donna Donohoe at (907) 738-1206, ddonohoe@gci.net; or Cindy Litman at (530) 574-3468, cindylitman@gmail.com.
